Housing Day Terms to Know
•
Housing Day, aka one of the rare times during the school year we show an immense outpour of school spirit, is coming up on Thursday! While upperclassmen are bickering away with their friends about how their own house’s housing day videos are “objectively” the best, freshmen are probably anxious to figure out where they will be living for the next three years (and if you’re looking for some facts on all the houses, check out Flyby’s Housing Market). To demystify Housing Day a little for the Class of 2019, Flyby has put together some Housing Day terms you should acquaint yourselves with, and we’ve also taken the liberty to make up names for common experiences we’ve all had on Housing Day but don’t really know what to call them:
N-1 Housing
“N” stands for the number of people living in a room, so using some impressive math skills, we’re here to tell you that n-1 housing means one fewer room than the number of residents. This is probably a term freshmen will encounter when assigned rooms for the next school year because a lot of sophomores in River Houses will live in doubles.
Storming the Yard/Dormstorming
Every morning on Housing Day, houses will compete with each other to be the first to get to the yard. Eventually, this will turn into mobs of upperclassmen dressed in house gear heckling one another about whose house is best. House mascots will dance around the crowd, tourists will become immensely confused and snap pictures, and freshmen will peer out of their windows anxiously.
River Run
Some say you make a visit to each of the 12 houses the night before, others say you take a shot at each house, and some have set to fire miniature boats with names of houses they either did or did not want on the Charles. In any case, there’s always heightened HUPD surveillance on Housing Day eve, so stay safe everyone—the last thing you want to do is receive disciplinary action for attempting to take a shot of good old Rubinoff.
Blocking Group Sleepover
The night before Housing Day, blocking groups typically congregate in the room they asked for their housing letters to be delivered too. The sleepover agenda typically includes outdoing one another in knowing more facts about every house, analyzing the cinematic qualities of each housing day video, getting no sleep, and making fun of that one blockmate who has a midterm and is in Lamont.
*THE* Linking Group Text
Quite possibly the worst or best spoiler alert ever—when your linking group gets their housing assignment first and sends a group message to your blocking group about which house they got. Warning: they could also be lying to mess with your current state of fragility. Maybe it’s better to just put your phones on airplane mode, just in case.
Quad Tears
Some people cry in public when a Quad House storms their room and tells them they got quadded. Don’t do this.
Annenberg Lunch
The Houses basically take over Annenberg Thursday afternoon, with upperclassmen standing on tables and cheering. Your house specifically will shower you with love by giving you free House gear that will ultimately become gym attire or PJs. This is typically the time and place where every freshman will Instagram a picture of their blocking group with the caption #wewonthelottery.